...because I have been posting here for a couple of months, and I haven't really introduced myself. So, it's time....

My name is Giselle, or Gisele depending on who's addressing me and/or where they are from. I'm 22 and live, as I have mentioned in another thread, in a town just north of Auckland in New Zealand, with my gorgeous boyfriend and our cat. I'm a coastal geographer working as a Resource Management Planner, and finally enjoying having some money after being at university and scrimping!

I have a large, diverse extended family, which is great! My father is French, from a large family in a village near Dijon, and my mother is a Dutch Kiwi also from a very large family. They have separted now and found new partners, but still get on, and my family has since grown in all directions!

I grew up on a dairy farm with lots of space and animals, and we grew or raised almost everything we ate. Mum was highly influential in my love of cooking, and never forgets to remind me of various eating phases I went through as a child. I once went an entire summer eating nothing but plums, gherkins, olives, cheese and my mum's fruit cake! One of my earlier memories is helping our large family cutting up a beast in our coolstore, my job was to write the labels on the freezer bags, I'm not sure if anyone could read the label on what they were taking out of the freezer for awhile!

One day I hope to own my very own piece of land where I can raise calves, chickens, horses and of course have pets . A place where I can grow my own vegetables and live as environmentally friendly as possible.

I love photography (particularly black and white) anything arty and crafty (at the moment beading, jewellery making and painting), cooking, reading, the beach and a whole heap of other stuff which I always seem to forget whenever I start listing them

I joined Chocolate and Zucchini after reading alot of the posts in the forums (and of course Clotilde's lovely blog!!), I just knew that I would be happy in this place with so many brilliant lovely people from different walks of life, all over the world, with one thing in common..food!!!

I would really love to know more about everyone, if your willing to tell me!!

Well done Gisele, I think it was really polite to introduce yourself, and may other forum members follow your example. I tried to raise this issue of "anonymity" a long time ago, but I understand not everybody agrees, and that's OK.
I don't mean people have to tell us about their personal life, or anything private , but there should be some elementary introduction manners between people having a conversation, even a written one. I expect to know if I'm "talking" to a man or a woman , and where he/she lives, maybe some minimal information about hobbies, profession , age bracket ( detailes which have their place on the personal profile sheet of each one of the members).
I admit not to relate/reply to posts which are completely anonymous, it makes me feel uneasy not knowing even if I'm talking to a male or a female person. It's maybe my personal problem, but seeing your post Giselle, ( which I really enjoyed to read) convinced me to write this one.
Welcome to the forums, Giselle ,

No more war. Less anonimity, learning to know each other, leads to more empathy, less animosity, less wars...

Oh, Simona you've shamed me. After a year on the blog, let me introduce myself. I'm a 30 year old, single American with no children. I've been in the United States Army for ten years. I'm also going to school part time to be accepted in a medical program in the service. My parents are Haitian-American immigrants. I've been traveling around the US and the world since I've been in the Army and loving every minute of it. So far, I haven't gone to Iraq or Afghanistan, but sooner rather than later, it will be a reality. I've already said on another forum how I heard about Chocolate on NPR and I've been hooked ever since. I hope this is a proper enough intro._________________Live as if to die tomorrow. Learn as if to live forever.
Mahatma Gandhi

Dear bainst, I didn't inted to shame anybody, I just wanted to raise the issu. You did put some information on your profile sheet, and that is really fine. I think it's nice to know some little things about the people you connect with. We are a very heterogenous bunch of people, and I believe what make the forum interesting is our diversity, so why shoul this be concealed?
Anyhow, you probably know women have compulsory army service in Israel I've done my share ( 28 years ago!!) , I was a sargent in the Intelligence forces. I liked my 2 years of army, but that was enough.
I hope you'll stay in Korea, I assure you Iraq and Afganistan are not very touristically minded these days... You may come to visit us if you like, there are enough bombs over here too, but what a beautiful beach we have....

Oh, I know you weren't trying to shame anyone. I was just kidding, and I've been wanting to use that emoticon for a while. I've just left Korea to come back to the states after five years total overseas (four in Germany, one in Korea). And, with all that's going on in the North, I'm glad to be gone. I'm loving it here in the states again. And where I'm at now, there are wondeful views of Mt. Rainier for miles.

I've known that Isreal has mandatory service for both men and women, and that has always fascinated me, since women in our armed forces are a minority, except in my branch, medical, we are about even._________________Live as if to die tomorrow. Learn as if to live forever.
Mahatma Gandhi

In response to an inquiry from Gingerpale in the "Rainey Ranting" thread, here's a little about me --

I'm a 60-yr-old white male American living in Cambridge, Mass. with my wife of 28 years and cat of 16. I don't recall exactly how I stumbled on to C&Z, but I was immediately captivated by Clotilde's amusing posts, her curiosity, and her delight in discovering new ingredients, tools, places, and so on. And also, reading her posts brought back lots of memories from 11 months spent in Paris as a graduate student in 1974-75, 5 more months working in Paris for a small US company in the summer of 1989, and other travels.

My work is in chemistry and computers; my doctoral thesis was among the earliest efforts to do molecular modeling of proteins. Lately I've been interested in chemistry software and especially chemical information systems. My European-born professor wanted to return to Europe, and thought he had support lined up in France for two years, but things came unraveled and we returned to the US after 11 months. Not all that time was pleasant -- I was truly the impoverished student for a while, due to some problems getting our stipends flowing; I ate a lot of baguettes and cheap wine and cheese. Paris is not a good place to be without ample supplies of money!

Things gradually got better; I attended French language classes at the Alliance Francaise every week night for months and got somewhere up to the "me talk pretty someday" level that David Sedaris describes so well. In the Spring of 1975, some US friends came to visit; one of them is now my wife! Then, a stipend came in, and maybe another one -- was it a mistake, or an old one arriving late? In any case, I had money in my pocket! I could stop at those charcuiteries with the mouth-watering window displays, I could go in, and actually afford to buy something now and then! And I upgraded my wine and cheese selections considerably. By the way, my sponsor was the French drug firm Roussel-Uclaf -- you know it as the first two letters of the abortifacient RU-486.

Also in the summer of 1975, I traveled to Cambridge, England and to a Max Planck Institute in Munich, Germany to discuss work with other scientists. All of this traveling made a deep impression on me; I had never been outside the US before going to France!

And so, when we got a little along in careers and had time to travel, we have been to all the countries of Western Europe, and several others. Italy has been the place we go most, but there have been some wonderful times in France, in Spain, ... Most of our trips for the last eight or ten years have been bicycle tours. Someone else does all the planning, route-finding, and logistics; on a bicycle you go fast and far enough to see lots of territory, yet slow enough to see things you would miss in a car ... and parking is a whole lot easier with a bicycle!

Oh, one more thing -- I was a pretty serious clarinet player right through into graduate school (going to France pretty much put a stop to it), so the identification of BG as Benny Goodman wasn't far off! But I think my real musical connection is to someone who had the same birthday as mine -- namely Arturo Toscanini (he was a couple of years before me, though).

So I look forward to combing the C&Z archives and exchanging messages of any and all natures with all of you ... Bon appetit!_________________-- BG

BG--such a gracious reply to my (pretty silly) post! I was playing games to break the tension last night, and here you are, a real scientist no less! Funny about Benny Goodman--now I shall picture you as Steve Allen! In the kitchen with Donna Reed.
I live in Utah, stay close to home and like it. My traveling was long ago, (a happy hippie) hitchhiking in Europe, working in Israel, I suppose the food that knocked me out the most was in Greece. (Not just some of it, all of it.)
I agree that Clotilde has a charming manner, sweet and smart. She recently drove across the US--don't miss THOSE dining descriptions!

I came to C&Z (not long ago) looking for recipes, but it's fun and easy to "talk" too.
A cordial welcome, BG!

Last edited by gingerpale on Thu Aug 31, 2006 5:52 am; edited 1 time in total

I am taking now refuge on this forum from the rather (in)tense one about Israel vs. Hizbollah war . I already feel relieved, knowing I have only nice things to post.
BG ( I somehow guessed it wasn't Ben Gurion), your post justifies my quest for less anonimity on this forum.
Reading yours, I found that we studied in Paris and we both walked the streets on the awfully hot summer of 75' ( I was in paris 72'-77). I was not too poor, but poor enough to have to drink cheap wine, and lots of baguettes and cheese and vegetables. Still, I remember this period as one of the highlihts of my life. Being a poor student in Paris was a romantic notion back in the 70'. I lived in a "chambre de bonne" under the roof, 145 stairs up( that's why I could afford eating bread and 45% fat cheese).
Arturo Toscanini was the first Musical director and conductor to come in 1936 to then British Palestine and conduct the future Israeli Philarmonic Orchestra, an orchestra composed of musicians who fled Nazi Germany . He is still one of the most venerated musicians in Israel. Well, I also know your birthday date, but I won't disclose it on-line.

I think it's nice to know a LITTLE bit about who you're talking / posting to, so here's a little bit about me:

I'm 33, American, daughter of Japanese and Chinese immigrants who met in California in the late 60s. No husband, no kids, just 2 cats and a love of all animals, especially goldfish.

I love eating, hence I'm trying to learn to cook and garden. I'm addicted to buying new cookbooks and dreaming about new recipes, but actually cooking is a different story. There's always a time or a motivation issue.

I love Japanese and Chinese food best, and I prefer mild tasting food to strong, heavy foods.

I love France, speak French fluently and love the slower French pace of life in the countryside, especially the mid-size towns in Provence. Popping onto C&Z reminds me of this lovely country and the French approach to enjoying food and life._________________"Help! Help! I'm being repressed!" --- Monty Python and the Holy Grail